So how would you guys fix this game? I see ascendancies as a chore and endgame as boring.
I have no doubt they'll fix the end-game, since every patch has been slowly improving it in meaningful ways. Based on the last 2 leagues alone, I have no doubt they'll get there...eventually. One of my issues with the game
Vorph
covered really well so I won't expand on it.
I think the biggest thing GGG needs to fix is the early-to-midgame pacing..
The early-to-mid game pacing in PoE2 is one of the biggest contributors to player frustration because it feels both slow and punitive in ways that don't teach or reward mastery. Acts 1-3 ask players to engage with enemies that hit hard and punish mistakes before the game has given them the tools to respond meaningfully. Defensive layers are thin, recovery options are limited, and damage spikes feel arbitrary rather than instructive. It makes early progression feel like attrition instead of growth.
This hits melee especially hard. Close-range builds are forced to trade health for damage long before mitigation, sustain, or crowd control come online. Ranged and caster builds can at least manage risk through distance, but melee is asked to commit into danger without adequate payoff. The result is that the campaign quietly nudges players toward a small subset of "safe" builds, not because they're more interesting, but because they're less miserable to level. It also damages player retention. New players, who don't yet understand the systems or know which builds "come online later," are far less likely to push through a frustrating opening. Veterans might tolerate it once, but even they feel the friction when rerolling becomes a chore. Over time, that reduces how often people engage with new leagues, new ascendancies, or new ideas - exactly the opposite of what a live-service ARPG needs.
Another issue is how delayed the power curve is. PoE2's build expression doesn't really start until you unlock better gems, supports, and synergies, at which point the game suddenly opens up and becomes far more enjoyable. That sharp contrast makes the early acts feel like a toll booth you have to endure to reach the real game. Good pacing should ramp complexity and power gradually. PoE2 instead bottlenecks it, then releases it all at once.
There's also a mismatch between pacing and messaging. The game feels like it wants to be slow and deliberate early on, but it doesn't fully commit to that design. Enemy density, damage values, and encounter layouts often assume a faster, more capable character than the one you actually have. If PoE2 truly wants a slower ARPG experience, then early combat needs to be tuned around survivability, readability, and tactical decision making, not just reduced speed with unchanged lethality.
Finally, poor early pacing hurts replayability. Rerolling a character should feel like an opportunity to explore a new idea, not a chore where you repeat several hours of underpowered gameplay just to unlock basic functionality again. Right now, the early-mid game discourages experimentation by making the cost of trying something new feel too high.
Fixing this doesn't require making the early game trivial. It requires aligning difficulty, power growth, and player expectations so that progression feels intentional rather than obstructive. When the early game teaches the systems instead of fighting the player, the entire experience downstream improves.
